Chapter 326 Jiajing's Royal Food
If everything is related to the emperor, it will be complicated. For example, eating cannot be called eating, but eating.
I was silent and could not think that one day I would have the opportunity to eat imperial meals, so I was still very excited. I followed the emperor and walked towards the Jiaming Palace where I was eating. Half an hour before the emperor had eaten, I had been strictly guarded by the guards and no idle people were allowed to pass by.
When he and the emperor entered the Jiaming Hall, they saw a long table with bright yellow tablecloths in this smaller hall... five feet and five feet wide, but it was 1.5 feet and a half feet long. The utensils on the table were all gold and silver utensils with extremely exquisite workmanship, such as gold bowls, gold spoons, golden forks; silver cups, silver plates, and silver chopsticks, dazzlingly dazzling; and some ceramic plates, which seemed to be produced in Jingdezhen, but they were delicate and exquisite as they had never seen before. Before the dishes came up, just looking at the utensils on the table showed their royal style.
After a moment of silence, there was no second chair besides the dragon throne, and I thought to myself that I was going to stand and eat? This was indeed the rule in the palace. Fortunately, Emperor Jiajing was an emperor who hated rules and waved his hand and said, "Give him a seat." Otherwise, if I wanted to say something later, I would have to raise my head, which would be so awkward.
The palace maid who was serving him next to him moved a slap. After she sat down in silence, Huang Jin, who was standing behind His Majesty, raised her voice and said, "Transfer to the meal..."
There was a soft sound of clang, and there was a melodious music. After silentness, he noticed that behind the veil on the corner of the hall was a team of palace musicians. He couldn't help but sigh: "The emperor really knows how to enjoy it. He needs the band to entertain the meal."
Accompanied by the music, a team of dozens of well-dressed eunuchs in purple clothes, carrying dozens of red lacquer boxes painted with golden dragons, entered the hall in an orderly and silent manner, knelt down on the side of the dining table, and raised the food box high with both hands without any sway.
Huang Jin sang again: "Put the food!" More than a dozen people in the hall served, holding a red silk hand towel in their left hand, stepped forward, opened the food box, and placed the various imperial dishes inside neatly on the table.
Shun noticed that there was a small silver medal hanging outside each utensil containing imperial meals. In the strange situation, the palace maids put the silver medals into the soup and dishes to try. After the color did not change, another group of eunuchs came forward with silver bowls and chopsticks and picked up some of them in each dish. After eating them, Huang Jin finally said, "Please have a meal for your Majesty!"
At this time, the food was cold...
In addition to countless varieties of fresh fruits, dried fruits, candied fruits, and other snacks, the main dish is a vegetarian dish.
Because Taoism emphasizes tranquility and nature, if you want to live forever, you basically cannot eat meat. Therefore, Emperor Jiajing's imperial meals were also vegetarian food. I have heard of this for a long time, and I lamented that Emperor Jiajing was frugal... I heard that Empress Dowager Cixi had to eat 200 taels of silver in one meal, and the cost of other emperors was about the same. He felt that the emperor could save tens of thousands of taels of silver a year by just eating one meal.
In fact, this only shows that he is a local bun who has never seen the world. But he doesn't think about it. Taoist emperors are also emperors. As long as they are emperors, their selfish desires will be difficult to control. Those real vegetarian vegetarians that fade out of birds will be interesting to eat them occasionally, but if they eat them every day... it's fine if they don't practice immortality.
Therefore, the eunuch who was in charge of imperial meals made the most essence of soup and added them to various vegetarian meals. It tasted completely different from the taste of vegetables and radish, but was as delicious as bear's paw and abalone. Emperor Jiajing then gained an appetite and asked the eunuchs to prepare meals like this every day.
I ate a piece of tofu in silence, and felt it was delicious. I thought I would ask Rou Niang to make it for me when I went back, but he didn't know that a simple plate of tofu required more than a dozen pheasants to serve. This was just the cheapest dish, and the rest of the dishes were all "fake vegetarian meals" that seemed ordinary but was actually extremely exquisite and cost-effective.
If Chen Si knew that the cost of this table of Yuzhai was eighty taels of silver, he would probably not have awarded the title of "Frugal Emperor" to Emperor Jiajing.
While having a meal with the emperor, Chen Mo noticed that Huang Jin, the eunuch serving beside him, had a twitching cheek, as if it was extremely painful. Chen Mo said, "Why is this person like this? You are not paying money, why do you feel sorry for?"
But in fact, Huang Jin paid for the meal. What was going on? Because Xiyuan was not in the palace and was far away from the Guanglu Temple kitchen that served royal meals, Emperor Jiajing's diet was controlled by the eunuchs close to him... It was nothing more than a palm print and four pens from the Silijian, just one hand.
Silijian was the chief supervisor of 100,000 eunuchs. There were many places to earn money and the people below were respectful. Emperor Jiajing knew that they were all very rich. He didn't know that the firewood and rice were expensive. He felt that I didn't even eat meat and couldn't spend a lot of money, so he asked several eunuchs around him to take turns to treat him to dinner and no longer paid from the public account.
It would be fine if it was one meal or two, but it would be like this forever. Even if the eunuchs were corrupt officials, they would be unable to bear it. For example, Huang Jin had already sold a mansion near Shichahai, which was what he was planning to retire! But he could only hold on for another month, so much so that Eunuch Huang was so worried that he would cry, and he didn't dare to say it openly. He could only count it for one day.
Huang Jin was silent. Anyway, silence was very enjoyable. Just after the curtain, he saw the most exciting battle of monkeys. The awe of the emperor that had just been established has disappeared with Yan Song's successful monkey play.
Yes, in that confrontation, it seemed that Emperor Jiajing turned the tide and achieved an overwhelming victory, but in fact Yan Song was not hurt at all. He also resolved Zhao Wenhua's crisis, removed the Southeast Governor, and severely damaged Li Mo's momentum. It can be said that this time Jiajing won the face and was glamorous on the face; but Yan Song earned it from the inside and went home to have a secret fun.
Looking back afterwards, silent found that Yan Song was unscathed and achieved such a rich victory in an extremely unfavorable situation, all because he took advantage of the emperor's emotional changes. Therefore, he thought that the emperor was fooled, and what was even more sad was that Jiajing was unaware of it and only thought that others were fooled by himself.
After understanding this, Chen Mo secretly applauded Mr. Yan... For nothing else, just kneeling for himself today, which is more than kneeling in his whole life. This made him very depressed. If Master Yan had not relieved him, this meal would not be good.
After accompanying the emperor to eat, Jiajing moved to the side hall and drank Lu'an melon slices to digest food. After being silent, he didn't sit there, so he had to stand honestly, comforting himself and said, "Standing can help digestion, which is much more effective than drinking tea..."
The emperor held the teacup and asked silently, "What do you think about today?"
"Forgive me for your words, I am not united." He replied silently, and stopped talking. For such topics that are prone to lightning, it is better to be cherished as gold.
"Not bad," Jiajing nodded and said, "There is no one who is truly one mind. This is true between ministers, and they and I are the same..." He said with a little sadness: "I am alone, I am a person who will never have friends..."
Chen Si knew that this was purely a whineless moan, so he didn't respond, but just kept a concentrated expression of listening.
Sure enough, Emperor Jiajing put away his feelings and asked, "Today Yan Song's interpretation of the word "traitor" is very exciting. I'll ask you, do you think that which one is loyal and which one is traitor, is "Ge Lao Yan and Shangshu Li?"
I was silent and said that you can't have people scouring your stomach after meals, and you will have indigestion. Because this cannot be avoided anymore, the emperor let him hide behind the curtain and watch the highest meeting of the Ming Dynasty. It is obviously meaningful... The opportunity comes, and you have to seize it, otherwise you will never have a chance in your life. After thinking for a moment, he quickly said respectfully: "I dare to fight, and I feel that the two adults are like two rivers."
"Those two rivers?" Jiajing became interested and sat upright and said, "Let's listen."
"The Yangtze River and the Yellow River..." said silently.
"Yangtze River and Yellow River?" Emperor Jiajing laughed and said, "Haha... you are too proud of them, right?"
"Your Majesty has the heart of the nine provinces and the Yellow River, even the Yangtze River and the Yellow River are only part of your heart." Silence is very progressive and said: "But in the eyes of the empress and the people, the adults who are in charge of the world's government affairs on behalf of the heavens are like the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, which is related to whether our lives can continue, whether we live well or not."
"This metaphor is interesting," Jiajing smiled and said, "Who do you think is the Yangtze River and which is the Yellow River?"
Chen Si did not answer positively, but said softly: "Whether it is the Yangtze River or the Yellow River, it will irrigate both sides of the river and will also flood the disaster..."
Emperor Jiajing fell into deep thought and said to himself: "The Yangtze River is clearer and the Yellow River is muddy, but they are both useful and harmful, and they are essentially the same." After saying that, he finally showed his admiration and said: "It is very good, clever and honest; it is vivid but insightful."
Chapter completed!